When Laura Met Clint
by caballlah
Summary: Laura wasn't sure what she should've thought about having a man leap into her car, covered in blood, gun in hand, and demand that she drive, but she was pretty sure it shouldn't have been 'he's kinda cute.'
1. Chapter 1

Laura wasn't sure what she should've thought about having a man leap into her car, covered in blood, gun in hand, and demand that she drive, but she was pretty sure it shouldn't have been _he's kinda cute_.

Nonetheless, that is what she thought about the man who might bury her in a ditch eventually.

Even worse, she was pretty sure the cuteness has something to do with the blood trailing down one side of his face and oozing from a cut on his lip. Her dating life now made a lot more sense, knowing she had these issues.

"Just so you know," she said, paying a lot of attention to the rules of the road considering the situation she's in, "I'm a foreign aid worker here, I'm actually helping you guys, so if you killed me, that would probably make your country really unpopular and confirm a lot of bad stereotypes people have and really be a little cliché…"

He paused a moment, parsing this—did he speak English? Her Russian was too rusty to say 'oh God, oh God, I don't wanna die.' Then he opened his mouth, displaying blood-stained teeth, what a turn-on: "Do I look Chechen to you?"

"What?"

"I'm American."

"A white American… this is Chechnya… we're literally in the North Caucasus…"

"We're getting off to a bad start here," he says blandly. "My name's Clint and I'm… very sorry to impose on you like this—" (Here Laura laughed shrilly as the situation briefly caught up with her) "—but I just pissed off some very bad men and they were probably going to kill me if I didn't get a ride right just then."

"Probably… not really an excuse to kidnap someone… maybe you should've taken a chance on…"

"The other possibility was that they would torture me, then kill me."

"Oh. Okay." Laura shook her head, overcompensating for the swell of pity she suddenly felt at the prospect of this guy getting tortured when he already looked like he'd spent the night in the Hanoi Hilton. "And let me guess, I take you 'someplace safe,' then there are a lot more men with guns, I'm put in a shipping container, next thing I know I'm working a brothel in Singapore." Her hands tightened precipitously on the wheel. She could actually see her knuckles whiten, like ice forming. "That's bad enough, but you could at least not _lie about it—"_

"I'm not going to hurt you," Clint said, in a voice that would probably be soothing if he didn't have to cough up some blood just then. "I promise, I'm… nice. I just need to keep moving. Drive us around for a little bit, I'll get an exfil package set up, we'll part ways. I'm very sorry about getting blood on your seats."

"What?" Laura looked. He was bleeding all over her rich Corinthian leather. "Oh, _man!_ I totally don't believe you're nice. Nice guys never say they're nice!"

"What kind of logic is—c'mon, I know I'm not the handsomest guy in the world, but do I look like a rapist?"

"With the mustache? Kinda."

Clint sighed softly. "It's for my cover. Hold on one sec. And take a left at the next exit."

He dug into one of his pockets—his outfit had a lot of pockets—and took out a phone that could almost be Laura's Motorola, if it didn't also look a bit like a taser. Or a scorpion. He dialed a number, then—shook the phone. It picked up.

"Nat? Hi. Need an ETA on that extraction. Kinda urgent. Nothing major. Intel was just off on how many Serbs with AKs there would be by two, three… fourteen, tops… thirteen hours? _Thirteen hours?_ I could watch all the Lord of the Rings movies in thirteen hours! Extended editions! I am not _yelling—_ hold on." He pressed the phone to his chest. "Change of plans," he said to Laura. "I'm gonna need to crash at your place."

A deep wellspring of outrage revealed itself in Laura, irrational but firm on one point. "No, no, _absolutely not,_ you are not invited to my home!"

He put the phone to his ear again. "She said no. Yeah, I don't think that's going to help. Nat, she's driving. Okay, _fine…"_ He held the phone out to Laura. "She wants to talk to you."

"I'm driving!"

"It's Chechnya. You're about the only person who owns a car."

With a hateful shrug, Laura conceded that it wasn't exactly rush hour. She took the phone. "Hello?" she said, just then feeling she should've said something harsher with more expletives.

"Hi, Laura, right?"

"How did you know my—"

The voice was swift and female, husky like a lounge singer, with a trace of Cyrillic that only Laura's years in the mother country let her detect. "Listen, the guy who is admittedly carjacking you? I promise you, despite the mustache, he's not a rapist or an axe murderer or anything. I'm telling you this woman to woman, sisterhood of feminism, all that."

"How do I know you're not, like, some girl he keeps in a basement pit and for lying to me, he lets you wear my face when he's done with it?

A heavy sigh that Laura felt was unwarranted, given that it seemed like a reasonable possibility to her. It wasn't like she'd accused the two of them of being aliens or anything. "Take the phone away from your ear."

She did. Only the phone wasn't a phone anymore. Well, it was, but the keys and screen and mouthpiece and earpiece were now showing an image, like it was a TV Laura was holding in her hand instead of a phone. She was looking at possibly the most attractive redhead since Mary Jane Watson.

"Laura, look at me. Look at my face. Look at my cheekbones. Look at my very cute haircut." Whatever camera the redhead was using, she shifted it to take in a (very cute) haircut. "Do I look like I live in a basement, helping this dork be a serial killer?"

"No."

"No. I'm way better than that. So, with my personal guarantee that he's housebroken, can he stay in your house tonight?"

"Also, death squads," Clint put in. "Keep in mind, roaming death squads, looking for me."

"He'll be on his best behavior," the woman stressed.

"Fine!" Laura cried. "It's not like I have a choice in the matter anyway. I'm assuming he'll still shoot me if I try anything."

"I'll just wing you," Clint promised. "I'm a really good shot."

"He is!" the woman said.

Laura shoved the phone back at Clint. "Tell her it's fine."

Clint took the phone, which was once more a phone. "She's in. Bring her something nice with the extraction team, to make up for the gun and all."

"I'll send her one of my tops, to replace that orange horrible thing she's wearing. That's a monstrosity—"

"I can hear you!" Laura hissed.

"дерьмо! I'm hanging up now. By the way, you didn't tell her your name, did you?"

Clint hung up. "I didn't tell you my name, did I?"

Laura shook her head.

* * *

Held hostage and she hadn't even had time to tidy up her apartment first. Even if she died, her mother would still crow about this. 'What would your kidnapper think of your unmade bed, _Laura?'_

"Nice place," Clint said. "Homey. Knot too tight?"

Laura wiggled her hands. Of course, the cord held tight. "Not really."

"You're sure? I don't want to cut off the circulation. Just can't have you, you know—running to grab a gun and shoot me."

"That's fine. I totally understand."

"You're being sarcastic."

" _Nooooooo."_

Clint checked the knot around her ankles. "If it helps, know that doing this is probably doing a lot more to help make the world safe for democracy than… teaching kids Dr. Seuss or building Habitat for Humanity, whatever you're into."

"And how do we figure that?"

Certain she was secure, Clint leaned back on his end of the couch, checking the makeshift bandages he'd had on back when he first waved his gun in her face. "You build houses, bad guys blow up houses. I blow up bad guys, you can build all the houses you want."

"That's childishly simplistic."

"So is Dr. Seuss."

The phone rang in Laura's purse, Clint jumping, gun trained on it, body moving to shield Laura from… the ringtone. In a tick, he'd relaxed, settled back into the guitar player kinda stupor she'd thought he'd been in. Underneath that seemingly pharmaceutical Zen, though, he was on a hair trigger.

"Who's that?" he asked Laura.

"How should I know? You think this just happens to be one of those times when someone calls and I was just thinking about them and _that's good enough for an intelligence agency_?"

"Or you were expecting a call," Clint said, going to her purse and fishing the phone out. He checked the caller ID. "Who's Brad?"

"My boyfriend. He's a huge ex-Marine, eats a lot of red meat—"

"Yeah, I'm sure a lot of them go for the 'Like To Buy The World A Coke' types." Clint pressed Ignore. "He gonna call back?"

"Probably," Laura shrugged.

"And if you don't answer?"

Fed up with dignity in defeat, Laura stuck her tongue out at him.

Clint rolled his eyes. " _Please?"_

He said it in such a 'I'm trying my best' sort of way that Laura felt a flicker of sorry for him. "We were planning to go out tonight. He'll probably call again."

"And if you still don't answer?"

"He'll say _Baby/ Oh baby/ My sweet baby/ You're the one."_

Clint had the audacity to grin. "And after that, you think he'll come over here?"

Laura shrugged. "Maybe," she said, with all the sassiness of her teenage years that she'd been too much of a good girl to unleash on her parents.

Clint got down on one knee, arms crossed on his leg, gun hanging limply. "Lady. Look at me. Do you really want—" The phone started ringing after in his other hand. Clint obligingly checked the caller ID, just as dutifully lowered it. "Do you really want him to walk into all this, a situation I can't control, best-case scenario end up tied up right next to you?"

"It's tempting. I'm not feeling very gracious at the moment."

Clint held out the phone to her. "How's this: get rid of him, I'll untie your hands, you can at least scratch your nose."

Laura stared daggers at him. The phone continued to ring.

Clint raised it like a gavel. "Going once, going twice…"

"Fine!"

He pressed answer, holding the phone to Laura's ear, pressing it on the other side like they were dancing cheek to cheek.

"Laura? Babe, where are you? You were supposed to meet me like half an hour ago."

Laura's dreams of being a Hollywood actress, realized. "Donald, hey, I'm so sorry, my sister called, she's a mess, Mom had some kind of fall and she's in the hospital, so I'm just waiting by the phone, I'm getting calls from my brothers, my dad, my grandparents, everybody—"

"A fall? Is it serious?"

"No, I don't think so, just a little touch and go for a while, but she's talking and breathing on her own and stuff…"

Donald's voice shifted, gaining a register. "So… your mom falls down… good enough reason to cancel our date without telling me? We've been planning this for two weeks, I thought this was important to you—"

"Don, it _is_ important to me, I just wouldn't be good company right now anyway. And I've been glued to the phone, getting… third-hand what the doctors are saying…"

"And so you couldn't spare five seconds to think of me, call me, tell me there's an emergency and I might as well have not even bothered clearing my schedule? I know your work is so important, Laura, but I have a life too, you know."

"You're right, I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking, but can I please clear the line, someone might be trying to call me right now?"

"Okay, so if I call your sister, right now, she's gonna tell me she's with your mom, in the hospital, right now?"

Laura looked horrorstruck at Clint. He made the most succinct 'yeesh' face she'd ever seen. Amusing, but unhelpful.

"I mean, yeah, if you wanna be a jerk about it…"

"I'm the jerk? You're clearly making up a story to get out of this date that _you wanted,_ talking about shoring up our relationship, you can't even bother to show up, you can't even bother to _cancel?"_

"So I want a rain-check, okay, what's the big deal?"

"The big deal is I'm giving it my all, trying to make you the best you that you can be, but I don't think you're meeting me and I don't think you even care about making me the best me I can be. You know, Laura, more and more you feel like the right person at the wrong time."

"What's that even mean? Is that some buzzword from some online guide about breaking up with me?"

"I'm not saying I want to break up, I'm saying I would like to focus on me, a little, for once. And, even better, maybe we could do that without you being a total bitch about it, as—"

Clint was standing up suddenly. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Alright, now we're calling our girlfriend a bitch, _what's that?"_

Donald's voice rang out so loud Laura could hear it even with the phone off her ear. "Who's this?"

" _Who's this?"_ Clint retorted. "The guy who complains about his girlfriend's mom, his future mother-in-law, being in the hospital on date night? Is that who _this_ is? Okay, let's say for a second she does want to bail on your date, which you shouldn't even be thinking because it's your girlfriend and you should trust her. But, _for the sake of argument,_ she's flaking out on you. Maybe there's some other issues with the relationship and here you can be looking inward and wondering what exactly you're bringing to the table, good and bad, before you look at your girlfriend, who is _lovely,_ and _kind,_ and _funny,_ and would've loved to go on a date with you even though _you_ were willing to snap her head off at a moment's notice just so you could feel like a hotshot. Newsflash, buddy, it's not all about you! Do you even know what an 0-8-4 is? Can you imagine a rogue Nazi deep science organization flash-frying the Earth, or a pissed off Russian turning Times Square into a mosh pit? _No, you can't,_ because there are more important things than you and your ego, so maybe if you want to keep being in a relationship with a beautiful girl, you should get some perspective before a giant green rage-man steps on you just because you were in the _wrong place_ at the _wrong time!"_ Clint hung up and tossed the phone aside. " _Asshole._ You can do so much better."

"Yes," Laura said. Somewhat stunned. "I'm getting that."

"Well, thanks for trying." Quick-drawing a KA-BAR, he slit her wrist bindings and returned the blade to its sheath before she even had time to be scared of so much sharp, shiny metal in her vicinity. "Admit it, though—getting kidnapped, not such a close second to date night with _that guy?"_

Laura wiggled her legs, still bound at the ankles. "I do get to play a mermaid. There's something."

"That's the spirit. You got a TV? You can pick what we watch, I just need something to keep me up so this concussion doesn't get me."

"In the den," Laura said, and abruptly she was being picked up.

It didn't seem like much of an effort for him.

"So," she ventured politely, "how long until you get extracted?"


	2. Chapter 2

Laura's father had been one of those books and newspaper types. Didn't like TV, no matter who shot J.R. or was hosting SNL. Laura's mother insisted on something to watch her stories on while she kept the house, Father at work and Laura at school, but still, her daddy wasn't shy about calling it the idiot box. Turn your brain off and watch.

Ten years dead, he was being proven wrong. Laura had her TV on full blast—it wasn't much bigger than her mother's had been, though it was far thinner—but her brain was not turning off. She was thinking, so aggressively her brainwaves felt weighted, about the man sitting a respectful distance from her on the other side of her couch. Clint had washed the dried blood from his face and smoothed his hair, leaving only some stitches and a day's growth of beard.

It was a leading thought. Laura kept thinking about how long it'd been since she'd had such a handsome man over, other than her boyfriend, who was now striking her as more _pretty_ than handsome. And Clint was spending a lot of time with her. It'd _really_ been a while since she'd held an attractive man's attention like this. Just talking, looking, being in each other's company and waiting for it to get awkward and it stubbornly not getting awkward.

Laura didn't suffer from false modesty. She might not be on Tony Stark's speed-dial, but she hadn't been a cheerleader in high school for nothing, and the uniform still fit. It was actually unusual for her to spend this much time with a man and not have the topic of sex come up, one way or another. But the man would just not make a pass at her. Obviously, if he had, that would be threatening and inappropriate and awful.

So Laura didn't think of how to respond to the hypothetical pass. Even during muted commercials. And if she did, they could chalk that up to Stockholm Syndrome.

"So wait," Clint said, troublesomely focusing on the TV set. Usually, Laura would think the intensity with which he regarded it was him trying to keep his mind off other things, but in his case, she thought he might honestly look at everything like that. Banana peels. Small dogs. Typewriters. "It's a singing competition—but you watch it for people who aren't any good at singing?"

"Yes! Seriously, you've never watched American Idol?"

"I kinda keep busy. And the British guy, he makes fun of amateur singers for not being good at singing? Seems kinda mean."

"Don't you kill people for the government?"

Clint was all of a sudden boyishly defensive, like he'd broken a window playing fastball. "Yeah, but I don't criticize people while I'm doing it. I don't shoot people _and_ call their sisters sluts…"

Laura laughed. It felt good to just laugh with a guy. Uncomplicated. Breaking up with David suddenly felt like clearing a minefield. "You know something? You're pretty nice."

"If you say so."

"Nicest person who's ever kidnapped me."

"Nicest person I've ever kidnapped."

Laura touched her heart. "Awwww."

"Seriously, you're handling this great."

"Is that a good review on Hostage Takers Monthly I hear?"

Clint cocked his head, listening. He muted the TV. Then immediately unmuted it. "They've found us. Six guys, they have the place surrounded. Do you have any weapons?"

"…if this is a joke, it's nowhere near as good as my Hostage Takers Monthly gag.

"Any chance you've got a bow and arrow? I'll settle for a crossbow."

"Yeah, I used to draw in high school. I still have my set somewhere in the closet."

Clint stared at her like he was a kid and she was a Disney movie. "You may be the second perfect woman I've met in my life."

"You've met Gillian Anderson?"

The front door of Laura's apartment shook, battered by fists that sounded like they could be the size of country hams. Clint moved fast, stripping off his vest and—did he _need_ all those muscles or were some of them spares?

He threw the vest around Laura, still while being bare-chested. "Bulletproof. Keep your head down, no sudden movements. And here." He handed her his pistol. "Don't use that unless you absolutely have to; otherwise you'll probably hit me."

"How do you know I don't want to hit you?"

Clint paused a moment. "I didn't think of that." He shrugged. "Please don't." The door shook harder, now with added jabs in their own language that Laura was too afraid to translate. "And don't get that."

"Yes," Laura said. "Obviously." Though the thought occurred to her that she was now wielding a firearm on behalf of someone who was kidnapping her, a potentially dangerous psychopath, and there could be very nice men at the door, trying to help her. With Kazakh obscenities and grievous damage against her door.

Laura's apartment was basically one large cross. There was a long hallway with the front door at one end and the backdoor at the other. On the left side of the hallway, midway between either door, was the bedroom suite and bathroom. Opposite it on the right side was the living room and kitchenette where Laura was somewhat imprisoned. It occurred to Laura that they could go out the back—or at least, she could, if she could find a way to break the knot around her ankles—but then she figured the bad guys would have to have that covered.

Clint tossed her bedroom with some kind of land speed record, finding her bow in back of her closet, stringing it, and throwing the quiver over his shoulder. He took up a position in the doorway joining the hallway to her bedroom, arrow nocked, bowstring drawn back. Laura had been an archer all through high school and into college, until it got lost in the malaise of post-grad life. She knew how hard it was to hold a bowstring at full tautness, but Clint gave no indication of strain. He made it look effortless to hold a thirty pound draw as the minutes dragged on, the banging at the door growing more frantic, the shouted words louder, the unquantifiable feeling of blood in the air growing and burgeoning and pushing out all peace.

Laura felt herself gripped by a humid sweat, her clothes growing drenched, then pulling suffocatingly to her body, pushing in on her lungs so every breath delivered less and less air. She was hyperventilating. She was drowning in oxygen, and the only thing that seemed to keep her sane was how _calm_ Clint was, almost bored, the muscles thrumming in his arms and shoulders like struck piano wires, beads of sweat clouding in and darkening his hair, but the exertion, the tension never reached his eyes. He was aimed at the _backdoor,_ statue-still, only moving once, with the economy of movement you'd see in a samurai's sword slash. When the pounding stopped, Clint's head turned to Laura like clipped wire. He mouthed _stay down._ Then the backdoor exploded.

Clint was already loosing his bow before the smoke had even cleared, but apparently whoever was breaching was right on the heels of the blast, because Laura heard an almost disgusted grunt from the smoke. Laura knew he was dead. She just knew.

At the same moment, a shower of bullets ventilated the front door, passing right through it to whiz angrily down the hallway, a swarm of hornets that mostly nested in the archway Clint was sheltered behind. He had another arrow nocked, just like that. It was like magic.

"That was a good move, guys," Clint called over the roar of the gunfire. "Great timing." He faced Laura again. She didn't know how she noticed him, with a hail of gunfire feeding her front door into a woodchipper, but she felt his eyes on her and looked and apparently he'd been trying to get her attention.

He mouthed something she didn't get. She shook her head. He made a gun with his thumb and forefinger and pointed it upward. She shook her head again. He cupped his hand behind his ear and—honestly, what was finger gun at the ceiling supposed to—oh.

Laura pointed the pistol at the ceiling and fired a few rounds. Assuming Clint was returning fire, the gunfire at the front door paused. Clint swooped out into the hallway, arrow aimed at the front door. When the machine gunner broke cover again, Clint loosed an arrow. Nocked another, loosed it too, just as fast. This time, someone screamed. Clint nocked another but didn't fire. Just held it, eyes scanning rapidly over the shreds of the front door.

"Three?" Laura asked. He nodded. "You said four."

Clint was suddenly in motion; it was a bit like a nature program, when the lion got tired of the nearly motionless stalking crap and just ran full-on for a gazelle. He flew past her, into the kitchenette, the window over the sink, jumped, punched—his fist crashed through the glass and Laura heard someone gasp as they went down.

"Four," Clint said, pulling back inside. "You okay?"

He'd taken off his bulletproof vest and she was wearing it and it smelled like sweat and gunpowder and she felt like she was the head cheerleader wearing the star quarterback's letterman.

"I'm fine."

And here she'd never made it past the first floor on the pyramid.

"I don't suppose that's all the big scary men with guns in Chechnya?" Laura asked.

"Nope."

"So we're not staying?"

"We're not staying."

"What now then? We kidnap someone else and hope their apartment has three beds?"

Clint checked his watch. "Exfil's inbound. If we leave now, we won't have to wait long at the rendezvous point."

"Won't we be… exposed?"

Clint looked down at his chest and, somewhat chagrinned, picked up his jacket from where he'd draped it over her easy chair. He zipped it up over his bare skin. "Yeah, well, at least we'll be moving. And you'll get to see what a SHIELD chapterhouse looks like."

Oh, God, he was already asking her to move in with him.


	3. Chapter 3

Laura had never ridden in a helicopter before. It was a silly thing to think—she'd nearly been killed. Clint'd nearly been killed. Four people were dead, or at least very, very badly arrowed. But she'd never flown in a helicopter before. Seemed like it would be a lot like flying in a plane.

She was also tired. That seemed silly as well; she hadn't _done_ anything. But all that adrenaline in the gunbattle—her body had gotten her ready to run a marathon, lift a car, _anything._ Just because she'd ended up cowering and finding herself regretting never trying anal sex (on a man), didn't mean all that marathon-running, car-lifting energy had been recycled. It seemed to have been expended in sheer _worry._ Even now, in a landing zone ( _LZ,_ memories of a thousand war movies whispered) secured by Marines with camouflage and everything, she was still worrying about dying in her apartment. Maybe she just hadn't noticed she'd died yet. Shyamalan had to get his ideas from somewhere.

She sagged, losing her balance even as Clint waited vigilantly beside her for the chopper to come in for a landing. His arm shot out, catching her by the shoulder. Like an autonomous reaction. It took him a half-second to turn his head and realize he was touching her, not letting her fall. "You okay?"

"Yeah, just—" Her eyes closed again. It seemed impossible to keep them open without toothpicks or something. Nap time. That's what she wanted. She wasn't tired like cranky-tired, but like there was warm, voluptuous sleep available, she could have it if she'd just find a pillow…

She yawned. Answer enough. Clint took her hand, bringing her arm across his shoulders so she could rest her weight on him. It was shockingly comfortable. She leaned her head on his shoulder.

"Adrenaline rush, adrenaline crash," he said, like he was just a study partner trying to get her through her next test. "I'd give you some sugar or a Gatorade or something, but you can sleep on the whirlybird."

"The whirlybird." She was tired enough for that to be very, very funny. She looked up at him and saw a blotch of red in his dark yellow blur. "You're bleeding."

"Shrapnel. It's nothing. Won't even scar."

She licked her thumb and daubed at it. That got most of it. Without the blood, it was a nick no bigger than a shaving cut.

The helicopter came down, side-door thudding open, gunner inside gesturing to them. Clint helped Laura put one leg in front of the other, their escorts melting into the shadows, headed for some other extraction point. Everything was black for a moment, then Laura was woken by the door slamming shut. Clint was pulling a seatbelt corset-tight around her. He seated himself beside her as they took off, everything loud and shaking and at the tip-top of a roller coaster, but she just had to close her eyes and lower her head a little and everything became quiet and dark and still.

* * *

She woke up on the ground, appreciating suddenly how the ground didn't shake or make noise or move her stomach anywhere she didn't want it to go. She was still moving, though. She looked around, trying to determine which way was up, and found Clint's face. He was carrying her. She suddenly felt petite.

The man actually blushed. "You were sleeping," he explained. "No reason to wake you up so you can walk thirty feet to a bed."

"This the more enlightened version of clubbing a girl over the head and dragging her back to your cave? Getting her all tuckered out in a firefight and," Laura yawned, "carrying her around like a sack of potatoes?"

"If you're implying I'm smooth, we should hold off before you meet Natasha. She'll disabuse you of that notion"

"Ex-girlfriend?"

"More like an annoying little sister. We're here."

He set her down in some kind of cot, muttering an apology as then he yanked the sheets out from under her and pulled them over her huddling body.

"Don't forget my shoes," Laura said, and Clint lifted up the tail of the bedsheets to pull off her shoes for her.

"You're kinda milking this kidnapping thing, just so you know."

"If you're going to be pampered, might as well be well pampered."

"Want me to give you a pedi while I'm down here?"

 _Thank higher,_ Laura thought and fervently hoped she didn't say.

* * *

When she woke up it was mid-day, and Laura felt automatically lazy for sleeping so long despite being up half the night in a hostage situation. Clint was gone and the infirmary, she guessed it was, seemed empty. Laura drew back her sheets, about to go looking for her shoes when a voice came out of nowhere.

"Ms. Frasier?"

Laura was awake enough to give a shriek in all its glory. She whirled around, grabbing the nearest blunt object before thinking that, while a pillow was technically blunt, it was also of little danger to anyone who wasn't a chubby eleven-year-old girl who didn't think sleepovers were anywhere near as fun as the movies made them look.

Or so Laura had been told.

The man standing over her seemed vaguely Clintish, in that sense of being halfway dangerous and halfway just not anything she'd expect. He was a baby-faced man in his thirties, male pattern baldness in combat with a long, shaggy hairstyle that made a play for his shoulders—and the eighties. He wore a tan polo shirt and khaki shorts, and a set of not-kidding-around sunglasses were bookmarked at the nape of his collar. "Coulson," he greeted, so abruptly that Laura wondered if that was a greeting in some foreign language before taking it for his name.

"Clint?" Laura retorted, gesturing around like he was late for an appointment.

"Agent Barton," Coulson corrected. "He's giving his debriefing. Those tend to take a while. His field decisions can take some… explaining."

A nurse breezed in, passing him, and without so much as a by-your-leave began to look Laura over. The tests were familiar enough—making sure she was patched together enough not to fall apart on the carpet—so Laura let it pass.

With Coulson staying almost challengingly silent throughout, Laura took in the room. It was squat and dark, reminiscent of the desert dwellings she'd visited in Afghanistan. Windows with no glass, doorways with no doors—nothing to distinguish the place from just being another Russian Hooverville, constructed by refugees and abandoned just as quickly.

The nurse departed without a sound. "Thanks," Laura called after her.

"She doesn't speak English," Coulson said dryly. "Ms. Frasier, on behalf of the United States government, we'd like to apologize for the inconvenience you've been put through and thank you for the great courtesy you've shown our operative. We have men at your apartment now, repairing the damage that's been done, and as far as the IRS is concerned, a wealthy and distant relative of yours is about to die and leave you a great deal of money. Contingent, of course, on your signing a non-disclosure agreement."

Laura shrugged. "Not much to tell either way. Mostly I just needed to pee."

Coulson nodded seriously. "Although I'll stress you're not in any real danger, it might be a good idea to spend some time in another part of the world while this is all sorted out. We can pack your things for immediate shipping, if you'd like."

"I… suppose I could visit my mom."

The same nod. "I'll see if I can arrange you a chance to freshen up before your flight,"

Laura had one of those feelings like the entire conversation was just him putting a contract in front of her and her signing it. "What about Clint?"

"Agent Barton is fine."

"I'd like to see him."

"I'll pass that along." He sounded like he'd rather have forty different performances of The Vagina Monologues on his iPod. "Please wait here until further notice. You're not cleared."

"For _what_?"

"The rest of the base." He turned, about to leave like he had the President on call waiting, when a cell phone ringtone purred in his jacket pocket. He slipped his hand in and out of the pocket, checking a text message in passing. He rolled his eyes. "The Widow wants to see you."

"The who now?"

* * *

The other room of their little government pueblo was much like the first, thatch-roofed and stone-walled. A command center of multiple laptops and a table full of maps and files were the only things out of place. Laura stepped inside, Coulson shadowing her like a bodyguard, and Laura suddenly had a boutique bag shoved into her arms.

"Clean clothes," Natasha said. "Worth an education at most community colleges, and that's just the underwear. That's worth putting up with Clint Barton for an evening, isn't it?"

"He wasn't so bad…" Laura said, really hoping this wasn't Stockholm Syndrome.

"Really? How many times did he grunt?" Laura shook her head. "Not _once_? That must mean he likes you."

Natasha looked like someone had weaponized an issue of Vogue, body of every mean girl in high school with the smile of an A/V club. Laura took an instant liking to her, if only because Natasha was the first person she'd met since Clint who seemed to want to discourage thoughts of being put in a shallow grave if she was naughty.

"Whoa, you really don't look like you live in a basement pit."

" _Thank you,"_ Natasha said with a huge grin. "No one around here pays me any compliments. Probably afraid I'll disfigure them, just because of that _one time…"_

Laura stopped wondering why Natasha, a girl who could be America's Next Top Model, was working for MI6 or whoever.

"Paul give you much trouble?" Natasha continued, in a sympathetic voice.

Paul? Laura guessed Coulson had a first name after all. "No, not really."

"Well, let me know if I can do anything to thank you for babysitting Clint. You want help lying on your resume? We can put down that you were Mission Control at NASA. We'll just tell the Cape Canaveral boys it's for a cover. They'll say you tried to warn them about Apollo 13, but nobody listened…"

"That's alright," Laura insisted, and a steadily louder voice insisted _Donald!_ Somewhere in her inner ear. "Actually, could you check on my… Donald? Agent Barton kinda gave him a hard time; can you check he didn't call my mom to start a gang-up on me? Not that I think you spy on people without a warrant or—"

"No, it's cool, we do. But only pad people. Promise." She went over to the world's smallest Best Buy, laying a hand on the hacker's shoulder. "Pull up the boyfriend."

The multiple screens were suddenly taken up with Donald. Facebook page, LinkedIn account, Twitter, job history, taxes, bank account, medical records. Phone log—with a few key strokes, Laura had his E! True Hollywood Story.

One of the screens was taken up with Laura's information. As she looked closer, curious what her credit rating was, the screen shifted to a profile of a pretty brunette—one of those nice Jewish girls who kept themselves thin enough to be lifted up by a tall guy's bicep curl. That seemed to be their primary boyfriend requirement.

Laura guessed this monitor was some kind of known associates thing. She checked the name and recognized it from the phone log. He'd been calling her. A lot. "Who's Jane Foster?"

She looked to Natasha. Natasha was biting her lip. "We're pushing the limits of my social awareness with that question."

"What's that mean?"

Natasha gave the guy's shoulder a squeeze. "Move." He moved, Natasha taking his seat and typing. "This is a cell phone picture Donald sent to her fifteen hours ago."

It was a picture all right. She recognized the skinny abs, the oddly prominently nipples, the little white indentations the elastic waistband of his underwear made in his belly. Below that, she had a passing familiarity as well.

"That dickhead!"

"What about it?" Natasha asked.

"He's cheating on me! With… Dr. A-cups!"

"Actually, she just started working on her doctorate."

Laura slumped into the nearest chair. Suddenly, it was all rushing back. Insanely unfair, but all that worry and fear and adrenaline that had laid her out was back, pounding in her temple, demanding its say. There'd been _bullets_ around her, guns fired, blood and dead bodies. She could've _died._ And her boyfriend was fucking cheating on her, fucking on her, cheating on her, fucking someone else… Laura laughed hysterically. Something so petty didn't even seem to _compute._ She'd been in a helicopter. She'd been carried around by a _spy_ like a bride over the threshold.

Natasha picked her up from the chair; arm around her shoulders, she guided her from the room as she shook like she had palsy. Natasha had a way of touching: firm but gentle. It compelled Laura to move with polite insistence, but without physically forcing her. Soon, Laura was in a supply closet, or a pantry—bullets and canned goods. Natasha sat her down on a cardboard box full enough to be solid, petting her with brisk strokes like she was trying to warm someone freezing to death.

"It's okay, it happens," Natasha assured her. "Anything can set it off, you're just going to have to ride it out. Let it happen, let it pass."

"Oh God," Laura said, her mind a train threatening to run off the rails. She thought, desperately, that Natasha had done this often enough to have some kind of cue, that Clint had, God, how many times had they been shot at, how many bullets had they taken—she'd seen the scars on Clint's chest and thought they were just make-up or something, like tattoos, someone to show how much of a badass Batman or Rambo or Conan the Barbarian was. But they were real, he'd been _shot._ "Where's Clint?"

"He's sleeping," Natasha said. "Collapsed, really. Had to pull rank to get him debriefed, then told him his mom called to get him to the barracks—passed out there. He'd been up about thirty hours, the bad guys knew he was coming, he's been on the run ever since—"

"Oh God…"

"He'll be up soon. All the residual caffeine in his system has to revolt some time. I know you want to say goodbye."

Laura had to say something or she was going to start blubbering. There had to be something to say, had to be… "How can this be my life? I just get into my car and when I get out of it, people are shooting at me and my boyfriend isn't my boyfriend and there are lingerie models in catsuits…"

"Thank you," Natasha said. "Listen, don't feel bad about freaking out. Everyone freaks out. You're actually handling this a lot better than some politicians I've known. One little laser sight and those Congressmen pee their onesies…"

"How am I handling this well!? I feel like I'm gonna scream! Or cry! Or both!"

"You haven't vomited yet. That's something." Natasha petted her hair. "Don't cry. You've a very strong woman, Laura. A very beautiful woman. I want to take care of you, just let me take care of you." Her hands ran over Laura's face, feather-light fingertips coming to her mouth, gently tracing every crack in her lips. "I want to take care of you so much… I've never felt this way about anyone, but it's like I can't control myself around you… I don't want to…"

Then she kissed Laura.

In hindsight, it was good for Laura to know she wasn't in the closet or anything. Just a regular old heterosexual. Because, given Natasha's redheaded everything, if she'd been the slightest bit bicurious, she wouldn't jump up and say—

"WHAT THE HELL!"

Natasha looked up at her, startled. She paused a long moment. "Sorry, training—that's the only way I really know how to comfort people."

Laura wiped her mouth. Natasha's lipgloss tasted like an Adele song. "You don't know any way of relating to emotionally vulnerable people other than sucking their face?"

"Clint and I are working on that," Natasha said lamely. "He lets me punch his shoulder…"

Laura shook her head in bewilderment.

"I had a weird childhood," Natasha stated. "I'm going to check on Clint now."

She left Laura alone in the stockroom. A moment later, she poked her head back through the door.

"I really do think you're pretty, though."

"Out!"


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: Hey folks, new month, so quick reminder to check out my , maybe put in a few bucks. Just go to the website, search for Seriousfic, see if anything interests you. There's a monthly exclusive story, story notes, and patrons are first in line for commissions. Okay, plug over._

* * *

The stupid thing was, something as ridiculous as getting kissed by the Russian Emma Peel had at least snapped Laura out of her funk. She'd gotten past the reality of her situation and was well into the absurdity of it. She floated over all the weird goings-on like she was remembering a dream. Six-pack abs archer and bicurious Trinity lady. Why not?

In a little while, being alone with her thoughts gave her enough leeway to pick herself up and dust herself off and all kinds of aphorisms her dad would've just loved. She blew her noses, wiped her eyes, and did some weak push-ups against the wall to get her blood flowing again. The weariness that'd been descending on her again now popped like a bubble. She felt fresh, alert, and disgustingly filthy. She hadn't showered in, what, two days? Her clothes felt like they were forty percent sweat. She went to the storeroom's door, fist absurdly raised to knock on it, and it flew open. Coulson was there, chewing on the earpiece of those rock star huge sunglasses.

"Ms. Frasier?" Not knowing what else to do, she nodded. "Agent Barton would like to see you. Would you mind sparing a moment?"

"Yeah. Sure." If only because she couldn't imagine what he had to say to her. _Sorry my partner vacuumed your face? Here's some helpful hints on how to get bullet holes out of plaster?_

Following him, Laura was surprised at how small and efficient the compound was. Judging from the intervals of natural light streaming in through windows, it wasn't much bigger than your average starter home, but it wasn't cramped or crowded. The place seemed to hold everything necessary to run a small-scale operation, nothing surplus to requirement, no redundancies, no overcommitting. From her experience with government operations, that struck Laura as rarer than green eggs. Ham or no.

She was still in a bit of a funk from post-traumatic stress first base, so when Coulson abruptly stopped, she walked right into them. Then she looked past Coulson's wide shoulders and there was Clint, wearing something like the combat rugby gear he'd been bleeding all over when she first met him. "Hey. Just the hostage I was looking for. Paul, mind if I borrow Laura a minute? Won't take a sec."

Coulson smiled oddly. "You just said you needed to borrow her for a minute, though."

"Wait," Laura said, "I though Clint was the one who asked to see me?"

"I did?" Clint nodded momentarily. "Slipped my mind. Blood loss, you know. C'mon, Laura, Coulson's got important handler stuff to be doing. Papers that aren't stamped or anything…"

Laura took a step toward him and Coulson's hand settled around her arm. Not squeezing, but an iron grip nonetheless. "That's far enough."

Clint hung his head. "Don't do this, man. C'mon. Do you know how much paperwork you're giving me? Of course you know, you're my handler…"

Coulson reached into his jacket. Laura was almost not surprised when he brought out a gun. Nor when he aimed it at her head. It all happened so smoothly, Laura had no time to think it was odd at all.

Again, Clint sighed. When he spoke next, his voice was low. Laura had to strain to hear it. "You shouldn't have thrown good money after bad, Paul. Sure, killing me before I find the leak, makes sense. But when that didn't work, you shouldn't have sent more guys after me. Because there's only one way they could've known where I was…"

"I was sorta hoping they'd blame it on Romanoff. Without you backing her like some kinda lovesick puppy, the Council would overrule Fury and extradite that bitch back to Russia where she belongs."

"And now we're calling our co-worker a bitch—point is, if you'd just've run after the first set-up didn't pan out, you could've at least gotten a headstart. Fury might've even let you go, saved you for a rainy day somewhere down the line. Not the way I'd want to go, but better than the Raft. And you are going to the Raft…"

"I'm walking out of here," Coulson said. "I assume you've seen enough cop movies to understand the concept of insurance?"

"I assume you've seen enough cop movies to know the bad guy never gets away by using someone as a human shield."

"Oh, I don't think she's just anyone. You _owe_ her. You're not going to risk her life just to get your hands on an eensy-bitsy security breach like me…"

"Don't have to," Clint said confidently. "I took the bullets outta your gun five minutes ago."

"Bullshit. You lie!"

Clint spread his arms wide. "Try me."

Coulson jerked the gun in Clint's direction and fired. The world exploded, a sandstorm of gunsmoke, a gong of a report. For one horrid instant, Laura saw Clint's vest dimple, then the bullet carried him to the ground.

Laura didn't see him land. Before the gun's slide had even returned, Natasha had slipped in between her and Coulson like she was cutting into a dance. She hit Coulson in the throat with a sickeningly wet sound, twisted the gun out of his hand, all the while shielding Laura with her body. Coulson went down and stayed down.

Clint groaned. "I told Personnel, _Phil_ Coulson, not Paul, I don't want Paul to be my handler, I want to be handled by _Phil…"_ Natasha was snickering. " _What?"_

"You wanna be handled by Phil?"

"Real mature."

"YOU'RE SHOT!" Laura announced shrilly.

"Oh, yeah." Clint unzipped his vest, wincing with the motion. Where the bullet had hit the fabric, the flesh underneath was bleached white, already clouding with a bruise. "Hey, these things really are bulletproof…"

"What if he'd shot you in the head!?"

"Laura, please, let me handle this," Natasha said. Then, in Russian, she said to Clint something that sounded very much like _what if he'd shot you in the head?_

"Every military in the world trains guys to go for the center mass, SHIELD included. Besides, he's a crap shot anyway. Look at this." He prodded his prequel to a bruise. "Nowhere near my heart. Would've been a straight through and through."

"Can you get up?" Natasha asked.

"Yeah, but I think I'm just gonna lie here a while. You mind, like—delivering him to justice and all?"

"Oh yeah." Taking some plasticuffs from her catsuit, Natasha secured Paul. He still wasn't moving. "Of course, you could've just told me over the phone that he was our guy. I could've got him while he was on the can."

"Didn't come to me until just now." Clint whirled his finger by his temple. "In a dream."

Laura shut her eyes for a long moment. Hugged her boutique bag tightly. _"Can I please just have a shower now?"_

* * *

The shower was probably enough to prove the safe house was really some kind of high-tech spy building. The water was warm—instantly, gloriously warm, something even the shower in Laura's apartment didn't guarantee. Even back in Connecticut, she'd struggled with getting water that was this hot for this long.

She stood under the stream and let it boil away all the shakes and sores and persistent, nagging worries until her legs were tired of standing. Then she rinsed off—the shower had quite a few frou-frou body washes and such that Laura guessed were Natasha's, and she'd been eager to try them—and toweled off and wrapped herself in a terrycloth robe. Then she sat on the toilet and was quiet.

She knew they'd come back, all the demon memories of having a gun to her head, watching Clint shot, the gunfight in her apartment. But for now, her mind was carefully still. She tried to enjoy it, being clean.

At some point, there was a knock on the door. Clint. She knew just from the way he knocked. "Everything—" he began, with concern, but Laura automatically said "Come in!" and they both waited a mystified beat for Laura to take it back, then he opened the door. Shuffled inside, looking for a place to sit, ended up jumping up on the sink.

"I pulled one or two strings," Clint said, "got you out of a debriefing. Paul's singing like a canary, both Nat and I saw it, no need for you to have to go over it all. There's a car waiting for you, whenever you're ready."

"So that's it then? All this happens—the shooting, the… the helicopters… and then it just stops for me? This is where I get off?" Laura didn't know what she wanted. Not to go out in 'the field' again, certainly. It just seemed unfair to her, somehow. Starting a book and not being allowed to finish it.

"Laura, everything that happened? This was best-case scenario. Nobody died—well, nobody I liked—the bad guys all ended up in jail, two hot chicks made out…"

"Oh God…" Laura folded her hands over her face. "She told you—"

"Don't worry about it, these things happen when I'm not around to watch them. Point is, this was a good day. I don't get a lot of days like this. You shouldn't stick around for what the rest are like."

"Yeah." Laura took her hands away. "Yeah. I just… I wanna _do_ something."

"Best thing you can do is stay out of the line of fire. Hate to have to worry about you."

Laura looked at him. "You really think I'm a hot chick?"

"I said that? Lady, I meant to say lady—listen, here." He reached into one pocket of his uniform and brought out what was either a spy gadget ingeniously disguised as a business card, or a business card. "My number's on here. If you need anything, day or night, whatever—I'm your man."

"Thanks." It read 'Clinton Barton—Singer, Songwriter, Cowboy' then listed a phone number. "Okay, I have a few comments—"

"We've all got cover identities. Nat models in Japan, in case anyone asks."

"I thought I tasted sushi…"

Clint grinned. "So are you getting on the road or what? I kinda need the shower."

* * *

Dressed in something Sarah Jessica Parker might wear on a weekend—Natasha did have good taste, apropos of sushi—Laura went out to a waiting black sedan. Couldn't have been more government if she had to fill out a form to get in.

"Hill," the driver greeted, a short-haired woman with sunglasses Laura would kill for. "Get comfy, it's a two hour drive to the airport."

Laura nodded. Through the window, Clint was waving goodbye. "Let's get this show on the road then."

"One thing before we start." Hill turned around in her seat, resting one muscular arm on the divider between the front and back. " _Stay away from my girl."_

"Natasha?"

"You heard me." Hill turned back around and started the engine.


End file.
